Canadian youth left out of debate: analysts

With the federal election just over ten weeks away, Thursday’s Maclean’s leaders debate offered little to reassure Canadian millennials that their concerns matter to the country’s major political parties.

“They would rather be spending time and energy on converting already existing voters to their parties versus trying to convince non-voters,” said Carolyn Loutfi, executive director of the non-partisan project Apathy is Boring, which aims to increase youth political participation.

Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party said, “vote abandoning, in my view, is a much bigger problem than vote-splitting,” when addressing the fact that 40 per cent of Canadians didn’t vote in the last election.

Loutfi echoed May’s sentiments, saying that during the portion of the debate on democratic reform, the leaders did not address the issue of accessing first-time voters.

“We know if we don’t access them they won’t start voting later in life,” she said “if we don’t have Canadians voting, we are not really living in a democracy.”

With Statistics Canada showing voter turnout rates of 38.8 per cent for those aged 18-25, and 45 per cent of those aged 25-34 during the last federal election, parties might not be trying to hard to target this voting block, and because of this, young people are not engaging with politics, as they feel politicians don’t speak to them, Loutfti said.

According to a report on millennial political engagement from the Broadbent Institute, the survey found that 70 per cent of millennials think politicians ignore the views of young people and 60 per cent say that politicians are more concerned with older Canadians than with young people.

David McGrane, a professor of political science at the University of Saskatchewan said that during the debate, the leaders spoke about issues that tend to skew towards older Canadians — like security and tax breaks.

However, David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data, a Canadian market research firm, said despite that lack of direct attention towards youth, the debate did focus on issues that young people care about like the environment and the economy.

The Broadbent report also found that the “factors affecting future quality of life,” in the top 5 were the environment, the global and Canadian economic situations and the decisions that politicians make.

“Overall while young people were not specifically appealed to and talked about, the issues and priorities of younger Canadians were,” Coletto said.

But McGrane argues the leaders did not frame the issues in a way that young Canadians care about.

“In this debate, there were multiple opportunities to bring up young people’s role in the economy and how they are worse-hit during a recession than older people, so from the standpoint of young people, that might be slightly disappointing,” he said.

Noting youth disengagement, Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau, during the portion of the debate on democratic reform, did hint at what his experience has been when talking to young Canadians:

“When I’m talking to young people, when I’m talking to people who are simply disillusioned and disenchanted with our political system, whether it’s the negativity, the attack, the divisiveness that tends to be rewarded all too often with electoral success.”

Coletto said that Trudeau’s tone and willingness to seem like a cooperative and collaborative leader could resonate with Generation Y, who he says are less partisan and prefer collaboration over conflict.

“The way he framed issues and his vision of the country was the best at crossing the divide,” Coletto said.

But McGrane says Trudeau could have gone farther to reach out and talk to young people, as he is a father with children — a situation many millennials share — as 77 per cent of all babies born in 2014 were from women aged 18-30, the National Post reports.

“It’s too bad…it would be a chance for him to say, ‘I’m a qualified young politician running for Canada’s highest office, young people are ready to take control of Canada and take control of Canadian politics.’ But he’s almost running away from being young,” he said.

Trudeau might be downplaying his age, McGrane says because he has been framed as being ‘not ready’ by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.